The first order of business is to give some background history to a McLaughlin-Buick: it was a car built and sold only in the Canadian market by General Motors of Canada during the early days of the automotive industry.
Car builders were plentiful, but successful car builders were scarce because cost-efficient mass production by automotive giants like Henry Ford pushed down the price tag for a new vehicle.
Jim Sutherland
The only route left for smaller builders was to join forces and form a larger company. General Motors was born through mergers and showcased their famous brands like Chevrolet, Oldsmobile and Buick as the company grew into an automotive juggernaut.
McLaughlin Motor Company was a Canadian car builder with close ties to General Motors because it used a Buick power train in its vehicles. The absorption of Buick into the General Motors family was followed by McLaughlin’s sale to GM and the birth of its Canadian subsidiary.
As a result, McLaughlin-Buick became a part of the General Motors of Canada lineup and was only sold in the Canadian market.
Leon Rumpf is the proud owner of a 1925 McLaughlin-Buick 2545A that he found abandoned in a field in 1977. The car was missing front and rear axles, along with many other components. Leon was a member of the RCMP, and part of a small three-man detachment assigned to a large rural area surrounding the small community of Bassano, Alberta Canada.
Leon purchased the car for 50 dollars and chose a tough path toward restoration for his antique car. His choice was difficult because the McLaughlin-Buick was in a sorry state and required many pieces to put his Humpty Dumpty car back together.
1977 was a time long before the dawn of the internet, and long after the last McLaughlin-Buick was built in Canada, so Leon faced a serious challenge to restore his car.
Leon connected with antique auto clubs so he could reach other car guys who might have the parts he needed for the project. By a stroke of luck, he was able to find the car’s original doors lying on a hay wagon in his area. Additionally, Leon found a chassis that replaced the missing front and rear axles, so he was able to move forward on the restoration.
Leon also traveled to many swap meets in search of parts, along with a snail mail letter campaign to find missing components for his ’25 McLaughlin-Buick. The restoration process took the next five years before Leon could bring his car back onto the road.
Leon restored his 1925 McLaughlin-Buick so he could hit the open road and estimates he has logged over 15,000 miles in it since he resurrected his 100-year-old car.
He drove the car to the States, Saskatchewan, and through the Rocky Mountains to British Columbia’s Okanagan over the years because road adventures were always a part of Leon’s game plan for his ’25 McLaughlin-Buick.
Bear in mind the car has a period-correct power train and mechanical four-wheel brakes that require riding them during wet conditions to keep them dry and functional, but Leon mastered its pre-war engineering and did not push his McLaughlin-Buick beyond its breaking point.
These days Leon does not take his 1925 McLaughlin-Buick on long road adventures and instead uses it as a parade car, along with an occasional wedding vehicle gig. It was an elegant car 100 years ago, and is even classier in 2025, mainly because the car is a timeless masterpiece.
Jim Sutherland
BY: Jim Sutherland
Jim Sutherland is a veteran automotive writer whose work has been published by many major print and online publications. The list includes Calgary Herald, The Truth About Cars, Red Deer Advocate, RPM Magazine, Edmonton Journal, Montreal Gazette, Windsor Star, Vancouver Province, and Post Media Wheels Section.
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